The beginning
by plaquettaire
Summary: This story is set right after Drake's fortune. This won't be long (2 or 3 chapters, maybe!) / From the first chapter: "There are people, who are exactly like you, with whome you bond in a minute, just like that; people who share your same sense of humor, your interests; those people you have the impression to have met a life time ago."
1. Chapter 1

Nathan Drake was not one-of-a-kind man. He was like any other! Any other man who climbs mountains like stairs, has a huge knowledge of history and a head for ancient deadly puzzles, no money, but a funny sense of humor that Elena would have never admitted to like. Yeah, just like any other, right? Right. That's what she was thinking about while she was almost (just almost) running downstair from her hotel room in Perù (where they traveled to catch a plane on the day after for the States) to the bar, where Nate and Sully were having a little party.

The place was cheap: the floor was cracking; one or two springs were out of the mattress, shining in the light on the white sheets; the fornitures had already lost their original colour and painted wood shavings were all around. It looked like a damn cracking tree! But Elena didn't even care. She was very far from her glassy, fancy, techonological house; she also lost her story (but not her job, option she didn't even want to think about), but there was a buzz in her head, that made herself satisfied and kind (just kind) of happy. Plus there was a certain someone downstars, she was missing the view of. He was good looking, she could give him this one.

So Elena took a quite long bath, found some new clothes, hid her part of treasure and run downstairs, jumping two steps in once like a baby, longing for a cold beer, or whatever people drinks in Perù, like an adult. The wood from the stair railing was scratching her left hand, but she didn't seem to notice or to care. She would have rub three red lines on her palm later in the night.

Once there, Elena took a long look to the place. The atmosphere in the bar reflected exactly the air from her hotel room. The heat was so suffocating, that her little joke costed already the clean scent from her shirt. There were a lot of opened windows and a useless ceiling fan right on her head, that was cleary not doing right its job. She waved her hands on her face to get some air, thinking that later she would have regret drinking alcohol.

She moved her head on the right and on the left twice, spotting all the brown hair tall men sitting in front of less tall older men, untill she found the two she was looking for. She got to see the right moment in which Nathan noticed her, rised his eyes and waved his hand, turning on a sparkle in her own chest. She so felt thrilled all in once. Why was she so thrilled about him looking at her in that filty bar while speaking to Sully?

Elena crossed his sight, pitching her eyes in his own, while a stupid embarassing smile spread on her lips. She wouldn't even noticed it if Nate wasn't smiling too just with an angle of his mouth, clearly loosing the interest in his conversation. They stayed put for a long lasting moment, while a sunbean lit her hair, making it look like golden strands on a porcellain skin.

Once that the buzzing coming from Sully's mouth stopped, the enchantment no longer held and Nathan shaked his head looking at him with a whispered "what" on his lips. He saw his friend looking behind his back, catching the sunlight Nate was so lost to look at and then sighing.

Sully gave a pat on the kid's back and then he walked away, leaving those two kids having fun alone. He said hello to Elena when he crossed her path, adding an absent "hey honey" to the hand wave and then he left for good, smiling because of them, trying to remember stories from long ago.

"Hey Sully!" she waved, once he was close to her.

Elena reach out to take him back to the table again, where an half beer was lying on, but he was already far. "Where is he going?" she asked Nate, pointing on their mutual friend with a finger.

He shrugged "His room?" trying to guess and then he took his last sip of beer from a glassy mug and then looked seriously in her eyes. Every inch of smile was faded away, while a single drop of ale was shining on his five o'clock shadow.

"Aah!" she murmured in understanding, looking at Sully's beer on her side of the table, touching the glass with her finger tips and playing with it. The foam had already disappeared and the glass wasn't so chilly as she expected. Gosh, how hot is in here?

"Ah!" he mocked and then made one of his quick moves over the table, catching her lips with his own.

It was quick and unespected. Wet and prickly. Elena saw him approaching, she noticed his fist in the air, as if he didn't know what to do with his hand. Reckless, shy, but brave and good tasty. She closed her eyes to savor the kiss but it was too late: he was already gone in place, leaving her with nothing but air. She opened her eyes again and he was looking at her on his chair, like nothing happened. "That's it?" she teased him, wearing a mischievous smile.

Nathan giggled, just like she did a thousands of time before. He knew, Elena was a piece of woman! A fine, funny, great piece of woman. She was clever and bold, small and good looking, something to cuddle and protect and she didn't even need him to. God, she was so strong and unpredictable, she already saved his sorry ass and these are stuff that put you on top of Nathan Drake's favourite people list. Not that the list is that long.

He didn't wait her to ask him twice! Nate turned around the table, keeping his eyes contact with Elena's, who was waiting in a sensually innocent smile, as if that was everything she thought about in the last days, but also as if she didn't want to admit to him. All he did was reach out, take her longing hand and drang her on his body. This time he didn't spare himself the blunder of not opening his own damn lips, not touch her tongue and, oh fuck!, not starting a fight in her mouth. She knew how to ride the dragon!

Nate tilted his head so to kiss her better, defying her. He was used to create a perfect angle with his neck, so the girl didn't even have to move a single muscle. Or at least just lips's muscles, that he didn't even know if they exist. But Elena wasn't that kind of woman who just waits to be kissed. Elena was so impatient, to be fair. So she tilted her head too and took advantage of the situation. He couldn't see that coming, good job, Elena! But Nate wasn't that kind waiting man either! You may think he did apprecciated her heat, her ardor? Sure he did. But he was a man of action. So he cupped her cheek and took her even closer, spreading his own body on her, just like custard. And maybe she was like vanilla, cause she grabbed his collar and twisted her leg around his hip, pressing one hand on his... Ooh! He could like her so damn much!

"Your room?" Nate asked in a hoarse voice.

"What? You didn't even buy me a beer!" she pretended to complain, even if she didn't care about the beer or about the filthy place they were in or about the people around who were looking at them and speaking in a language she couldn't understand. What language do they speak anyway? Who cares...

"Want a beer?" he tried to fool her with a soft whisper.

"H-hm"

So he tuned around to the table again, took his almost empty mug and poured his last sip in Sully's former drink. He tendered Elena her drink and she giggled. She noticed that around him she laughes all the time. She never let his eyes, took one last long sip and left a satisfied sound, noticing his pierced face.

"You are going to do this again." he said biting his lips, trying to look sensual but being just funny.

At her last smile, Nate took her wrist, pulled her in a hurry outside of bar, right on the stairs. They were both laughing and running away, it felt like being teenager, till the glass fell on the floor. They heard someone calling for them and they both yelled a goofy "oh crap!" and then a "sorry" before of running upstairs again.

"Wait, wait!" she called at some point.

"What?"

"This way." she explained, taking him, almost pulling him, on right path.

The floor was so cracking again, that they could image wood dust falling from someone's ceiling under their feet. Nate made the whole hallway in a few quick steps, while Elena stopped on the right door holding her key and looking at him as she couldn't get the smile off her face. He rejoined her, waiting to hear the click from the lock, breathing on her neck.

She started to laugh once more: one day she would have told him that the breath tickled her skin and he would have had one waepon more to use against her on their couch fight, but it was not the right time. God, she was already rescheduling her routine around him!

Finally they got in the room. They didn't care about the musty, hot, rotten smell around them, nor about the yelling coming from upstair or downstair, nor about the dust they could almost taste or see in the air. They just kissed and the world around disappeared.

It was Elena to take the first step and grab the edge of his white shirt. He thought she was about to take it over, but she seemed to not even care and she let it rest on his belly. The movement gave her room to hook his belt with her fingers. She loosened it and let it fall on the ground, when a methal clinking noise filled the room.

She was a naughty wonder of nature to watch: how she looked busy with his... equipment, how she was handling the situation making him long for action. He couldn't stay put and when he tried to take control, making eye contact and stripping her of her shirt, she shared it.

Nathan hadn't never had a woman who owned him on a so deep level and he kind of liked it. He didn't even notice she skipped completely those foreplays that women always ask for. He found himself lying on her bed with Elena riding his lap. Nate could just make the best of it, following her moans, kissing her open mouth and touching her climax with a finger on her lower lip. Just then he got the privilege to get his pace and to move faster and faster under her, watching her breast going up and down till he couldn't help himself anymore and he stopped abruptly in a satisfied moan, still trembling inside her.

It was the deepest, richest, shortest last intercourse of his entire life!

Elena fell next to him, she could feel a cold breeze on her naked back and the same old smile on her lips. A few strands of hair were stuck by sweat on her forehead, while the tips were moving with her breath on her cerry lips. The mattress was prickly, now wet and sheets looked like so attractive even with the heat coming from all the windows. She felt the hurge to cover herself with something, so she grabbed the tissue and draped her chest and his legs in the movement.

Nate sighed in a comic puff, trying to catch his breath and being funny all in once, and then he tried to say something to get the ball rolling. "So, how was it?" he stupidly said and regretted it in the same moment it came out of him. He watched to Elena, who was about to speak opening her mouth and making a skeptical look with her eyes and her brows together, so he tried a brave move to get through by the skin of his teeth. He kept going on, pretending it was just a joke or pretending to be just a boy. "From a scale of cool to awesome?"

This was too much to not laugh! Elena managed to rise up on her elbows, where a spring tried to sting her skin leaving her with one scar more than expected. She tried to appear serious and look at him, but just that little smile on his lips broke her intentions and she bursted out laughing again. "Well," she began to say, holding the sheets with one hand and moving together the other free one and her head on her side. "I'd say remarkable."

"What?" he asked with an astonished high tone of voice "At least outstanding, come on!"

"No, no way." she replied pretending to be a teacher, just as the ones she met when she was in college, who were used to move their face in a condescending look. "I can give you no more than decent."

Nate got instantly the reference and decided to play along with that. "Can I try again to get an higher vote?" he asked mischievously, rising up on his palms, trapping her in his arms on both side of her head. The mattress bent under his weight.

Elena smiled on his so close lips. "Maybe." she whispered.

"Maybe?" he spelt clearly "Well, you don't know but I'm the master of turning ladies's maybe in yes." he tried to brag in a crooked smile, going down on her neck and getting disappointed when she laughed out all in sudden.

"I can figure." she tried to say, catching her breath between one bursting and another, attempting to sneak out and hide that soft spot on her neck.

When Nate understood what it was happening there, he followed Elena on the bed, finding her hidden under the sheets, that he tried to pull away unsuccessfully, ending up seated against a human-form white burrito. "Leave it, you don't deserve all of this." he said alluding to himself, just to get her out of that thin armor.

Elena fell rightly into the trap. One by one, some little fingers leant over the edge of the sheet, pulling it down cautiously to expose first her hair, then her eyes and in the end her whole face. She found a (naked) amused smiling Nathan Drake, who was staring at her.

"Hello!" he said, in the first evening's orange sunlight.

"Hello." she replied and a moment after his mouth was again on her lips.

Elena found out how gentle and patient Nate could be, definitely more than herself. She also found out an eagerness she didnt' know about her person. Nate took his time, he asked to play with her body, studying her and trying to discover all those soft spots that got her goosebumps just with a delicate touch. He let her doing the same on him, hinting at some good activities she could manage with her mouth, but not before he tried himself those suggested practices on her.

They stayed in that room for almost one day. They ordered food from the bar downstairs and they found out people in Perù weren't used to home (well, hotel) 's delivery. So when a worried Sully knocked on their door, a too much naked Nate went out, covered just by a large and thin pillow, and gave him money and asked for food. They had just to wait and then ate a sort of beef on a stick on that very same bed.

On the morning after, the sun was shy, hidden behind a lot of white and grey clouds that filled the blue as if the star itself was sad for their leaving.

"What a shame!" Sully commented as they all walked together in the airport. He felt as the air was pretty different from the day before. It was thick and wet. The colours were dull and even the people's chattering sounded odd and annoying. The weather was matching with their feelings of emptyness, that the end of another adventure left.

"Did you want to go swimming one last time?" Nate asked jokingly, shaking his friend by his shoulder, having just a sigh and a shrug in reply.

"Who can blame him?" said Elena from behind them. She needed a long time to watch once more the sky of another country, thinking about her empty home in Florida, which was just waiting for her. She knew she would also have missed the adventures, the hunting and his job. Maybe the guy too. She took a long watch on him and she thought he was really capable of his processing ability that he showed off.

As the men were speaking, Elena looked at the departure board, hanged on the ceiling with a tiny methal rope. Her plane was about to leave. She sighed sadly before she called the men. "Hey, you two!"

Sully and Nate turned back to see the woman standing between the panel and a large curved stair that led to the gates.

"We are going on a different directions on this." she said, trying to hide behind humor that sadness that hit her as a speeding truck.

Sully approached to hug her and to whisper her something, that sounded like a "thank you" and a "it's been a pleasure" in Nate's distant ears. He froze in place, till his old friend gave him a knowing look and left the two kids alone for one last time.

"Hey!" she said, holding her bag with both hands on one shoulder.

"Hey!" he replied staring her. But one single word (three letters) sounds not enough. "I'm calling you." he added, mimicing a phone with the first and last fingers of his left hand.

"Yeah, sure." she said distrustfully.

"I mean it!" he said to convince her. And the man meant it for real. He was planning in that right minute to go to visit her in wherever place she lived. Maybe going for a walk together, having a dinner or sharing stories of his next adventure.

"You don't even have my phone number." she pointed out and she was quite right.

"That I was just asking you!" he said, trying to speak on her voice.

Elena giggled. She couldn't say if he was serious or not, but she decided to give him a chance, despite of the skepticism that came out of the mouth. "Just asking me." she repeated.

"Yeah!"

"Pff!"

"So can you give me your phone number?" Nate asked with a mock shining puppy look in his sad eyes.

Elena pretended to think about it tightening her lips in a line, even if she already decided about five minutes ago. "Ok." she just said in a strict voice. She searched for a pen and a piece of paper in her pockets, then she scrawled something on it and gave it to him.

Nate flipped that thing in his hand twice, he noticed something and then he smiled. "Eggs, milk.." he read out loud.

"Not that side!" she complained.

Nathan smiled. "See you soon, Elena Fisher." he said holding tight that tiny piece of paper.

"See you soon, cowboy!" she replied, smiling again, and then they both got away.

Nate was afraid of looking back: he both didn't want to find out he cared for that Fisher girl and didn't want to discover if she was doing the same or not.

There are people, who are exactly like you, with whome you bond in a minute, just like that; people who share your same sense of humor, your interests; those people you have the impression to have met a life time ago. Even if Elena Fisher knew the guy was a fraud on that first time she spoke to him on a phone, there was something in his voice that made her jump into the affair. Best mistake ever happened to make.

She looked behind just to give him one last stare and then she flew away.

* * *

Hello folks!  
Be kind on me, pleaaassee!  
Congratulations to the ones brave enough to be here and read this note! As you may have noticed, English isn't my first language and I'm new in the fandom. I'm so sure there are grammar mistakes here and there (for which, I'm looking for a beta... anyone?) and if you want to point them out, I'll be glad to fix it. This is not my first fanfiction, but I'm used to write in my own language (guess which one is it? :P). This was something I needed to try to get better or improve myself and so... here I am, I guess.  
My former idea was to write a very long one shot, but writing by writing I created just one chapter from a two lines hint. If this thing worths it, I may go on and write another chapter and make this two fall in love, break up and end up in Among Thieves.  
So let me know what you think, if I should go on or not. I will understand, don't worry.  
Kiss and love

P.S. I complitely suck with titles. Be patient about it too! xD


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Elena's home was just a little apartment by the sea. The place was perfect: she could smell salt air when it rain and she loved that scent; she could take a sunbath on her balcony when she was too busy to get out; or she could just open a window and watch the waves when she was too tired and stressed.

It was just a three rooms flat: a bedroom, the kitchen and a living room in which she spent the most of the time. She tried to fill it with a lot of stuff: books, pictures, clothes, papers, pillows. God, she loved pillows! You can hug them, punch them or even throw them on the television! She loved them as much as she hated hearing her own voice bouncing from wall to wall in an empty house. There was not a bare corner or a bald surface, not even in the kitchen. The whole place could seem pretty messy for a stranger, but she felt good in it. It could be, standing to her therapist, that she felt the hurge to stuff her rooms because of her pretty lonely last years. She could admit she lost a piece some time ago, but she got out of the pit and she was feeling strong enough to work on herself and to achieve her goals, that was journalism. Real journalism.

When she opened that door again, after a long, exhausting and excting week, she heard nothing. Everything was still, nothing was living in that place. Just a grey darkness was lying in every room at midday.

"Home sweet home!" she said to herself. She stepped inside and dropped her bag just behind the door. The gold was still in there and she hadn't the faintest idea of what to do with it. But first, priorities! She walked into the kitchen, grapped a bottle of water and emptied it in her stomach. Then, turn to wash, so she sacrificied her poor tired legs by having a shower, instead of a bath, so to be as fast as she could.

Elena collapsed on the couch before of thinking about what to do next. She dreamt about a giant golden statue, forests and people who was pointing a gun to her back. She even heard the sound of gun fires. She woke up just after she pulled the trigger, all soaked in her sweat, heavy breathing and with the cold feeling of metal circle between her shoulder blades. She tapped that point with one hand and she left a sigh of relief when she felt nothing but her wet hair.

"The gold!" Elena whispered, as if someone could hear her. She ran to her bag, almost falling and slipping on the floor, then she grabbed it, opened all the zippers till she found her phone, a wallet and a little metal box she used to hide the golden coins at the airport. She prefered to take just three of them with herself, leaving the heavy stuff to the guys who could have sell them and get the real money. Elena's purpose was just using those coins to create a story and maybe earn a promotion as a real journalist.

Two minutes after the box was in her bedroom, safe, hidden in a drawer under her wollens.

How long did she sleep? The night was already about to end. Soft and shy blue sunlights were sneaking in from the windows. The darkness was about to vanish and perish at the crack of dawn. As the day was getting brighter and brighter, she though that sooner or later she would have to come back to work and she wasn't looking forward for sure! So, as the hard worker she was, she decided to get up for real, eat something and get the hell out of that place.

Everything was still in place: the sea, her car, her favorite coffee shop, her work place, the employees. It was like she never left and it kind of annoyed her. How could it be that she discovered a whole new civilization, that she had a hell of adventure, risked her life more than once, and the world was still in place as if it never happened? As if the world didn't care. It was... unfair.

Not even a rain to legitimize her mood!

The last punch in the guts came when her boss, that was also her producer, told her she would have to work for the next few days on her episode, helping her coworker to recreate all the places she visited by using the computer graphics, so to have something to show since she lost the camera. And that's the thanks for saving the damn world. Nice job!

The day kept going on, boring and never ending. She was even about to fall asleep once or twice, but the lunch break saved her, giving her the chance to get a bad tasting coffee and survive through the rest of the day.

She was having a conversation with the broadcaster, when her phone rang. She silenced it and tried to convince the guy to let her talk about something different from the coffin she was sent in the first place to find. She was intended to use the near-death-of-pirates experience and expanding the television report on international waters crimes, but apparently that's not what people want to watch on TV. Shame, because that was the story she wanted to tell everybody.

Tired and disappointed, she fell on the office chair, trying to ignore the headache she was having from that morning, hiding the eyes from the artificial bright lights behind her palms. She remembered of that call, so in a slow move she made her phone slipping out of the jeans pocket, checked the calling list and read the name "Drake" on top of it. She sighed, waited for a moment and then pushed the green button. The sound of a ring came out of the phone, hitting her brain like a bullet.

Elena saw her left hand playing with a pen on the desk, she didn't even notice that was there, till her own fingers draw a blu line. That's how she found out she was being so anxious that she could even feel the infamous butteflies in her stomach.

"Oh, hello!" a male voice said "Is that.. Emily, right?" Nathan Drake spoke at the other corner of the phone, pretending to not even remember her name.

Yeah, sure.

Elena giggled, finally having a funny moment in that orrible first day back. His voice felt almost normal in her office, maybe because she was right on that very chair when she spoke him for the first time. "Yes, it's me, Norman." she replied, playing along with that. She could almost hear his smile, if that made any sense.

"So," he menaged to say after a short silence. "how are you?"

"Coping." she replied automatically. She wasn't the kind of person who would have said just "well" or "good" even if that was true. She almost wanted to share her frustation about her show: she felt it was time to move on, to be more serious and to talk to people about crimes, killers, politic. But guess what? People don't like it or, to be more specific, broadcasters are afraid to lose audience! She was dealing whith those kind of stuff everyday, what changed? It was like having had a life before of El Dorado adventure and a life after and the Elena from the life after couldn't stand to that shit anymore.

"Hard to come back to normality, huh?" Nate tried to say, complitely understanding her mood. He had to deal with that feeling since he was just a ten years old boy.

"Something like that. And you?" she asked, intensely hoping that he would have said something funny to make her laugh.

"It's not my first time." he just said, leaving her disappointed: he missed her so damn much, that he didn't even know what to say. What an idiot, right? Elena sighed and Nate bit his lip. "Fancy a massage?" he tried, feeling her frustation as his own and pretending to be behind her, speaking on her neck.

"Can you do it?" she asked, not really believing it.

Oh, that's right! Elena knew nothing about his massage skills! "Massage is my second name!" he said and he heard her tiny laugh, that made him smile like the idiot he knew he was. "What if I take a plan and meet you?" he said spontaneously, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "To comfort you?"

And so the world became thrilling again. Elena almost fell from her chair. She had to hang on her desk and hold it tight, while she was thinking about what to say. She babbled something, till a proper word came out of her mouth. "A-a-are you serious?" she asked, beucase that meant one thing: he liked her and wanted to see her again. But for real. You don't take a plane and cross the country to get a laid!

"Come on, don't play difficult with me!" he pleaded.

"I'm not!" she complained and it was the last thing she wanted to do. "I just can't believe you asked me a date!" she said and she started to joke with her fingers in her hair. She thanked that he could not see her in that moment, being such a teenager while speaking to him.

"I didn't." Nate said, trying to hide that smile on his lips ever from himself.

"You did." she corrected him, making it clear.

"No, I didn't!" he tried to deny it like a baby

"You totally did!" and she wasn't so grown up too.

"All right, I did." he let her win. "So what you say?" he asked, pointing out that she didn't give him an answer, even if he already knew she was going to say yes.

"Yes." she replied.

"Alright, see you in a couple of days."

And he hung up. Just like that.

The day changed again: that problem she had, with the broadcaster, wasn't a big deal; the coffee didn't taste so bad; the lights were so strong to keep her awake and didn't annoy her after all; the desk had one or two blue lines more than before and the chair was even comfortable. No problem.

She found herself to smile, thinking about Nathan and the day she would have met him again. She would have walked him in the streets at night, had a good dinner, got back home and had the most amazing sex she has ever had. She couldn't stop to think about his voice, about the look he might have had while talking to her and she wished she could have seen it.

"Oh god!" Elena thought, as she ran her hands through the hair. She knew what that meant: she was falling for that idiot.

There was always been something in the airports that fascinated Elena so much. She couldn't say if it was because of the people, the chaos, the shops or the disproportionate number of bags and luggages that outnumbered the travelers. Maybe the magic was that she felt so anonymous and so invisible in the crowd that she could sing aloud without caring much. Or maybe it was the idea of leaving and finding someone (still) waiting for you.

When she was young, she always wished to take a plan and go away, who knows where, and never come back. But she never had the chance and she took the path her parents wanted for her: going to the college and graduating. That suffocating plan made her ran away to find an exciting job.

It all came by accident. At those times, when she tried the audition for a late night talk show, the man who would have become her boss was so impressed that he promised her a better position, which would have allowed her to travel and learn a lot. The appealing idea made her get on the train (or the plane) and that's when the travelling began. She was used to come back home to her family after filming one episode of her brand new show and used to leave again before of another one. She always had all those amazing stories to tell and her parents were so eager to listen to them. They were so proud and happy for their lovely daughter, who was finally smiling! She could see sadness in their smiles when they walked her to the airport, but she always thought that it would have been for the best, that they would have got used to it and that time by time it would have hurt less.

That day never came.

Elena has never been on the other side of the line. She has never waited for somebody to show up in the airport. She couldn't image she would have risen her eyes so ofter to check if those steps she just heard were Nate's.

She was playing with her fingers too much, rubbing the skin from the cuticle to the knuckle. Her head was on the moon, when she felt a sharp pain from her left thumb where a drop of blood was getting bigger and bigger. She crushed it, while she was still thinking about her parents and the last time they walked her in that very same place. The blood dripped on her hand, drawing a sticky long red line that she licked away.

She still had the finger in her mouth when she finally heard a voice calling "Hey beautiful!" it said "I happened to be in..." Nate began to say, joking as he always did, with that cheerful tone of voice, but she wrapt her arms around his neck before he got the chance to finish that sentence.

Her hug was so strong, he almost fell on the ground. Nate was so pleasantly surprised by her enthusiasm, that he lifted Elena off her feet. He loved how needy she was in that moment, because he was feeling the same and so he didn't need to hide it.

"Hey!" she finally managed to say once she got on the ground again "I wasn't sure you didn't ditch me!"

Elena was trying to hide a smile, but it was already all over her face and it was brightening her eyes. Nate couln't say anything. Why should he? He just took her and kissed her on her lips, passionately, as if he didnt' see her for one year instead of just week.

"So." he finally said "where are we going?" he asked, lifting his bag and walking hand in hand outside.

"Beer?" she proposed, walking him to her car.

A boyish grin appeared on his face, while he was trying to hide a thought, but it got too fast to his mouth and he couldn't help but say it. "You are just like Sully," he bit his lips but it was too late "but with boobs." He said it. He could believe he said it. He got in the car and hoped really really hard she didn't hear it. Standing to her long silence and that giggle that came after, she did and surprisingly he said the right thing.

"Ehm," she tried pretending to not undestand what he meant "should I take it as a compliment?" but she liked the joke and she already took it as a compliment. She was even flattered.

"Yes." he replied, staring at her breast, while the alternation of lights and shadows from the street lamps were making it, her, more and more appealing.

"You stupid one." she said, noticing where his eyes were landing.

"And yet, you like me!" he tried to set her up for laughs "Who's the fool now?" absetly said, watching outside and studying her city.

"Still you."

And then it was his time to giggle. He didn't even try to hide that stupid smile on his face, he was just happy. Those times between one adventure and another were the most awful and boring of his life, even more than the researching times, closed in a library, studying a plan and looking for all the informations he might have needed. But that time with Elena didn't sound bad at all. He rolled down the window and enjoyed the ocean air, wondering if she could feel it everyday from her house. Nate always enjoyed the smallest thing: a scent, the wind on top of his hair, the speed of a car or a bike on an empty road, humming a song. And she was just doing it! He joined her, ending up singing together like a very bad rock band.

They laughed and he covered her hand with his own on the gear shift. They were close and not just physically. There was something, like a wire, that tied them together so strong and so undeniable. Nate was feeling so stupid while those thoughts wandered in his stupid mind. If asked, he would have denied till death, but he liked her quite a lot. He was almost thinking, just almost, he could (but he wasn't!) fall in love with her.

Elena stopped in a little car park. There were no lights, no people, no bar and no beer for sure. The sea was just beyond a fence, while three buildings were surrounding that place on the other side. They were tall, full of windows and balconies. Some lights were on, some were off. Nate couldn't hear a sound, not even a wastepaper rolling on the road like a movie. "Where are we?" he asked. And then his dirty thought made fun of his mind: no lights, no people...

"My house." she just said.

The situation was getting better and better. "I thought you were going to kill me."

"Maybe after."

"What did I do?" he asked, picking that childish question instead of an mischievous "after what?"

"Nothing," she said, spelling it very slowly and softly. It was her the mischievous one. "yet." Oh, how much did he like her? "What about that beer?" he asked, playing the same part she did when they were in that bar less than a week ago.

"I didn't say where." she replied, picking up her home keys from the back pocket. Nate studied the whole place as he climbed the stair in silence. That building was perfect: no mold, no damp patches, not even a crack in the walls. It was looking like a proper house from the outside.

They stopped at the third floor, where a sign, written in golden numbers, suggested they were in front of the apartment 32. The keys clacked and the door opened, revealing an heavy darkness inside. The only two soft lights were coming from a phone on some table and from a television, defining the outlines from the furniture.

"And lights on!" she announced pushing a button. She could remember how many steps she needed to get to the kitchen, open the fridge and turn the television on, but she had a guest so she tried to make him comfortable by making sure, at least, he could see his feet. When she spied his glance, she found him looking all around himself, admiring her place as if it was an ancient temple or something like that, but smaller.

"Fascinating!" he said to fill the silence.

"Make yourself at home!" Elena encouraged him. She wanted to say thank you, but she wasn't sure that was a real compliment. "I'm going ahead and cook something." she said, pointing at the kitchen, where two packages of chicken wigs were waiting to be baked. "How is Sully?" she asked, yelling over the noise she was making by opening drawers and moving flatwer to find a damn steak knife.

"Good!" Nate just said while he kept going on in his search, as if he was looking for something or he wanted to study her house for real.

It was worse than being naked. She knew he wasn't the dummy guy he was used to pretend to be. He was sensitive, sympathetic, perceptive and clever, a combination that scared Elena and she was sure that was the reason because he didn't invite her to his place. The idea that he could know her, her habits, her fears, her past just by looking around made her feel uncomfortable. Elena was holding the knife, trying to stay focus on the familiar grip of its handle, spying him from time to time.

Nate was looking at literally everything: he searched for the date on the newspapers that were on the table, trying to understand if she read all of them and was too lazy to throw them away or if she was just studying them, and the last was the case; he studied the TV remotes, noticing that just the paint on the off/on button was faded away, sign that she only used it as company. Then his attention was captured by two or three photo frame, facing down. He imaged it could have been a picture of ex boyfriend, something that made her feel sad and angry together, something that ended up abruptly. He took one and turned it over, discovering a picture of a young couple holding a baby in a pink blanket, pointing both at the camera. The picture was old, but well preserved behind a glass. Nate thought they weren't on a good term, they may have had a fight or who knows what. "Parents?" he asked with a wave of curiosity.

When Elena noticed he was combing through her stuff, she left the chicken and stayed put, leaning against the door jamb. She saw him holding that frame and she froze, cause she didn't look herself at that picture from a long time, feeling also a little guilty about it. "H-hm." she hummed.

"They are good looking." Nate said, trying to be polite and not exactly knowing what to pull out of the hat. What kind of compliments do you make to someone's parents?

"They were." she rectified and then she got back to the cooking, trying to avoid his look, hoping he didn't mind her and kept going on with his search.

Nate knew exactly how she was feeling. He felt like that himself so many times: the look from other people who pity you for not having the childhood every other kids have; those three words everybody spoke him (I am sorry), that never changed anything. He left the frame where he found it and then he approached her, hugging her from behind. "I've been in an orphanage." Nate just said, leaving voluntarily aside the rest of his story, because it was everything he was willing to say to a woman from forever. This tale was used to come out after girls's embarassing questions and he regretted the telling all of times. But there was something in Elena that made him feel comfortable or minded to share it. Maybe misery loves company, that's all.

Elena had always known Nathan was a warm, affectionate, even touchy, person. She let him tightening his arms around her stomach, as she was enjoying the contact on her back. There was a cold breeze in her appartment, she didnt't notice till he wrapped her like a human blanket. Then a memory hit her and she remembered the face of her mother and her father when she left home for college. "They were the best." she began to say, focusing on their smile, pulling out something she never shared with someone else. "They pushed me in everything and taught me everything they knew." His hand clung to her shirt. "Sorry." Elena said in the end, then she remembered she was cooking and so she kept cutting the potatoes she wanted to add to the chicken.

"It's ok." Nate whispered on her neck.

The scent from her hair was addictive and overwhelming. He unleashed her hair, watching it falling on her shoulders, as a golden cascade, then he dipped his face in it, so her magic profume tickled his nose like a drug. Nate closed his eyes and he left his hands wandering on her warm skin.

"I won't get anything done in this way!" Elena complained, laughing as his breath tickled her neck and god, she forgot about it! She was still holding the knife. A thrilling sensation of danger and forbidden-ness climbed up her arm till her neck to Nate's warm lips. She reached his hair and held him still.

His hand was already on her belt, then he got through it and something moved in her belly, making her arching her back on his firm body. When his hand finally touched her, she adjusted it, moving it a bit upper and a bit on the right, making him drawing circles in her pants.

The girl knew what she wanted! She was such a revelation! Her hand guiding his own was even hotter than her body or her moans. Nathan crushed her against the counter. The noise from a falling knife covered the sounds from their mouths, till he couldn't resist anymore and flipped her, taking her lips and her tounge in his own.

Elena jumped on the countertop and wrapped her legs around him. He stripped her from the waist down and then devoted the time to make her feel better and then to make them both feel better.

They stayed frozen in that position for a never ending moment, both catching their breath. The silence fell down again, but for once it didn't annoy her. Elena tapped the back of his arm, suggesting him to get off her, giving her space to get on her feet. The floor was cold and she had his gaze on herself. He just couldn't look away and it made her laugh for a first time.

The second one came when Nate cleared his voice, as he heard the a deep and long lasting sound from her stomach, that informed him she was hungry. "Burned too much energy. " he said with a cocky smile chiselled on his face.

"Yeah!" she said, rising an hand to offer him a high five.

"Cool!" he giggled and then he hugged her for no reason, pressing a tiny sweet kiss on her temple.

Elena froze at that spontaneous sign of affection and when she recovered the function of her body, she couldn't help herself but hug him in return, just by using one hand on his shoulders, and enjoy those glimpses of love.

When Nate left her to pull himself together, Elena's stomach complained again, as if she wasn't eating from for ever. She could hear the sound of his grinn even if he was trying to hide it somewhere and being polite. Well, dinner time was quite over. "So," she said and she looked around thinking that she would have had to cook and just then eat: the chicken was still not in the oven. "What if we order pizza?"

And that was how Elena found out she had another passion in common with her favourite treasure hunter (beside himself): pizza! Plus, they both found out delivery men don't like to work on late night, five minutes before the closing time, but Nate paid the boy and the question was over.

They sat on the couch, sharing the pizza box and a towel Elena always used to not mess with food in the living room. They were watching TV as if it wasn't their first time, pointing it from time to time to catch the other's attention and laughing for the same stupid gag. They were pretty capable of also being friends if they wanted, right? She remembered when once her father said that her mother was his best friend and it moved something in her heart again for that night.

"So, what are you working on?" Nate asked when he was on his last bite. Surprisingly she was fast too and she didn't have to choose between eating the last slice and talking.

"You?" Elena said, more like a question than a proper answer. She really didn't know where her show was going on and the idea of quitting and finding something better, something more serious, was still in her mind.

Nate seemed to think about what she said, while Elena was staring at his confused gaze holding a laugh on her lips, as he seemed to look for the answer in the air, till he understood the reference. "Ah, funny!"

"Could be better." she shrugged.

"I don't think so!" he said, making fun of her, as he pointed at himself.

The joke made Elena giggle again, as if she ever stopped around him! "And you?" then she asked out of curiosity "Are you bothering other journalists to help you?"

"No," he said "The last time didn't go well."

"What?" Elena asked in a high voice, getting up on her feet, pretending to be offended and standing in front of him with hands on hips. Nate bit his lips, throwed the pizza box, that was still on his lap, away and hung on her, so to pull her on himself.

Their laughs were covering the sounds from the TV, till an annoying noise interruped them: Nathan's phone was buzzing from his pockets. He had his legs twisted in hers and he had to untie himself to find the stupid device. He took one or two long moment to spy the name on the screen, before of asking a "Can you..." without even finishing his sentence.

As soon as she said "Of course.", he was walking away, looking for a quite place to talk without her listening. She heard a tinkling "hello?" and a quieter "can we talk about it later?", then just whispers. It wasn't her intention to overhear, but their last adventure should have proved that he could trust on her. Then why should he walk in another room to take a call? Why did their adventure seem too far?

The silence fell in the room, so that Elena could even hear her breath coming out with a sigh. There was something wrong. It wasn't as she remembered. It was different. When they were together, physically close to each other, she couldn't help but laugh, have fun and stop overthinking. And staying together was so good that she was about to feel something. But there was a distance, comen from El Dorado, a silence she couldn't bear, she couldn't just ignore. A lonely feeling that was closing around her heart and that would have ate her from the inside in the second he would have flown away of the city. As if, as long as she wasn't in the action, their adventure didn't matter for him too anymore. As if she's been just a passing companion, or a girl in a dock, and se didn't want to play that role.

It's funny how the little things can make clear a confused situation, how just a phone call could have set Elena's mind on some hardest decisions about her future. She couldn't allow herself to have feelings for him: he would have broken her, leaving her to pick up pieces of what remains. Plus this situation would have had an impact on her job and she couldn't allow it too. Instead it could have helped her to get over the end of the relationship.

But what if she was already feeling something? What was she supposed to do to get over it? What if she was feeling setted aside?

"Hey, did I miss something?" he said, as he came back on the couch, avoiding the garbages on the floor, and noticed Elena hugging a pillow, her eyes lost in the blue light of the television. "Earth to Elena, Earth to Elena, respond, over!" he said in a robotic voice.

"Dumbass!" as the spell was over, she taunted him, hitting him with a pillow.

"Yeah, I've got a lot of qualities!" he said and sat on the couch beside her. Nate made a cliché move, yawning and stretching his arm around her back so to pull the girl closer. Then he focused on the TV, where a very bad movie was just airing. He seemed comfortable, calm, even happy. She noticed him spying her from time to time and tightening his hold on her shoulder when their eyes met.

In the calm of the opening title sequence Elena smiled just with the half of the face he could see, while the other half was still wondering about what she was supposed to do with him, with them, with the whole thing.

Hey guys!

Thank you very very much for reading and being here :)

I'm sorry for every grammar mistake you found ('cause I know there are somewhere!).

I'm going to write another chapter and then go to the next interlude, between uc2 and uc3. Angst and sadness ahead!

Thank you again and see you soon!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Here again, huh?" Nate said, visibly embarassed, almost yelling over the loud of crying children and sad people, again at the airport.

The morning is the worst moment to leave. Elena remembered it so well, when her parents were trying to say something, but people's buzzes made every other sounds hard to be undertood. Elena hated to leave in the morning as much as she hated to see someone else leaving. She just added this last thing on the list. "Here again!" she reapeated in a sad low tone of voice.

The last few days flew at lightning speed, discovering more and more stuff about each other: as Elena learnt that Nate couldn't spend more than twelve hours between four walls and a roof, he learnt that she tried to avoid to get out with all her strength (unless there was a trip ahead!); she liked chips just if a little crispy on the outside, while he made always a lot of efforts to sweep them aside, so they could complete each other; she laughed on those jokes nobody did and she was able to formulate a proper comeback, that made him laugh even harder than she did; they both liked cartoons and had a thing for pets. They petted all the dogs of the neightborhood! He learnt how Elena smiled for a kiss on her cheek, how she sit on the couch hugging her legs, how much she loved pop corns while watching a movie. She learnt that Nate preferred beer over wine, that he needed skin contact and any kind of sign of affection, even little things such as intertwining fingers.

They were in her bed, belly full of chocolate and candies, when they had the longest talk they could remember with another human being. Their hands were sticky with sugar and cookie crumbs, the room was orage colored because of the weird lightbulb she bought in a crafts fair, and her house never felt so complete. They shared stories, mostly from their childhood: he saw Elena's smile while talking about her parents; she listened to Nate's first adventure with Sully.

It never happened to both of them to share so much. There was something in Nate, that made her willing to share everything she remembered. It was there, even if she kept remembering to herself that she needed to take it nice and slow.

"I want to see you again." he admitted in a low tender voice, that came out from nowhere. He grabbed her hands with his own and watched at those tiny little things disappearing in his palms.

She could feel how calloused they were and while she was watching at them, she asked herself if she would have missed it, him, their time. If her house would have been empty again. Elena sighed because she didn't know what to say. As the time passed, she kept postponing the decision about what to say or what to do, quitting or not quitting, till the unvoidable day he had to come back to his place, his job, and she had to come back to reality. Again. She thought that she would have put an end to this story, that it could have hurt her, that he wasn't the nice guy he pretended to be. At least he was till a job arrived.

There've been other calls. Many other calls. Once he pretended he didn't hear it, once he said it was just Sully, once he went to the bathroom to talk knowing that she knew. Once she read the name Chloe on his phone. She wasn't jealous, no, it wasn't that. But she didn't even know who the girl was: what if it was just a sister? He never spoke a word about other people besides Sully. Neither she told him anything about the people she knew and that was the saddest part: they weren't sharing the present, thery weren't living in it together, even if it was nice to talk about the past. If there was just one thing Elena knew about relationships was that they require trust and Nate didn't trust her. Plus, neither did she: who was calling him? What is he hiding? Is he back in illegal jobs? And what for?

All those questions were running in her head, spinning like a top, confusing her. And that smile of him?

He was waiting for her to say it back, but all he heard was her sighing and it made him confused and sad. He saw her laughing all the time with him, they've been so good together, then what was he missing? "What if I fly here to you again once I've done?" he proposed, because all he knew was that he already missed the time they spent together and it never happened to him. Not with a woman. He was feeling for her like he always felt for the adventure.

"Done with what?" she asked, investigating like a real journalist. She couldn't get out of her head the idea that he was getting back into illegality. Not to mention the real chance he could get himself killed.

"Ehm.." he pretended to think about it with one hand behind his head "Secret?" he tried.

"Drake!" she scolded him.

"Are we back on Drake again?" he said and he noticed as she tried to hold that tiny smile behind an angry frown. But it was there! He saw it and nobody could convince him otherwise. "Look, I'm sorry." he tried to say, forcing his face in a serious look. He could pretend how much he wanted to haven't noticed that she changed her mood every time he got a call or every time he mentioned the possibility of another work, but it was real and he could feel it. Nathan just didn't want her to be involved in some dangerous stuff, that's all, was it a so bad thing? He could have told her the whole story once he got back. It was perfect!

" _Ladies and gentlemen, this is the final boarding call for flight 967 to Washington_."

They both looked up, as if they could see the person who spoke into the speakers. A tiny smile appeared on her face and just for a moment he thought that everything was alright and that she understood, thrilling him. But then she said "It's yours." trying also to cheer him with a "Come on!" and everything vanished again.

"Let me guess," he tried "it's over, right?"

Her lack of willpower around him made her postpone that decision for too long and his sad face wasn't making it easier. Her hands was still in his own. Elena looked down and moved one finger to caress his thumb and it felt right. "No." she murmured and in that moment she decided to try to make it work, whatever it was. "Call me." she said and she smiled for real this time.

She could see his smile blowing up from side to side on his face. She couldn't help but smile herself and let him hug her in the middle of a sad and moving crowd. Elena could see from the back of his shoulders a lot of people crying, hugging their loved ones, waving and someothers alone, happy to leave. She felt weird to think she was part of that crowd, again behind the line and not over it, to be the one to be left behind.

Nate managed to leave, never breaking eye contact, never let his smile fade away. As they parted, his hand was holding hers, until room between them was enough to break their touch and a weird sparkle was the only thing that remained on their fingers. He watched at her lips and her eyes one last time before of turning around and going ahead to the gate.

Elena waited to see him disappear behind.

She was alone. She looked around and saw other people like her, like her parents were. She felt a clench on her heart and weirdly tears behing her eyes. She was feeling already nosthalgic. On her left, another girl was crying and she couldn't help but watch the girl. Elena was surrounded by people who was feeling the same. Alone. One by one they were making a giant anounymous, lonely and selfish crowd.

When she got back to the carpark she looked at his plane taking flight.

When one morning Elena woke up, she could see specks of dust dancing in the light beams that were coming from the slits of her bedroom curtains. She stretched her arms, crossing the finger together, with that weird feeling of having forgotten something. She frowned with her thinking caps on and finally she got it. She jumped out of the bed and run through the kitchen, till she found her phone. "Shit!" she murmured when she noticed that it ran out of battery. She got back to the other room and put the phone on charger. She waited for it to turn on, tapping a foot on the floor.

The beep from a message made her even more nervous than she was. She read the name "Nate" and she got excited. In that moment she knew again it could work for them. A shiver took her right hand and arm and she was almost trembling, making impossible to read the rest of the message. The text said "Big day!" and she smiled "Can't talk to you today, but I'll watch you. Good morning!" and sadness got her again. Elena sighed. Again.

Since he left, she heard his voice just twice in a week, but she got a lot of texts: one on morning, one on night before of bedtime. Then she got just monosyllabic texts, that basically asked her to wait and she waited, because she wanted to give it a try. Everything she knew was that he was out of the country and he couldn't talk about it. Elena checked the news everyday, hoping together to some weird accidents to happen, so to understand where he was, and to not happen. It was frustrating.

On the other hand, that day was the day. The new episode of her show was supposed to air. She hated it. She rewatched those sixty minutes again and again and the more she watched it, the more she wanted to delete it and leave the channel empty-handed. And maybe quit. Her job was never been so frustrating too.

Elena sighed again. That same night she was supposed to go to the channel studios and press the red button, the "air" red button. It was a mockery dressed up as an invitation. "You should be thankful" Frank said, the man behind the show, the boss. "What a honor!" he played as the best actor in the world. That was the icing on the cake of a awful week!

When that night Frank asked "what's wrong?" as if he concerned, she just pressed that fucking button and left to never come back.

When the phone buzzed persistently in the night, Elena thought it was just the alarm clock she forgot to shut down. She tried to ignore it with a pillow on her head, covering her ears, as if it was helping or working. Nothing!

She stretched her arm to grab it, she touched everything but the phone, till she decided to open her eyes. She was too annoyed even to play the sleeping beauty. It was an anonymous call and the thought it could be Nate made her take the call. "Hello?" she said in a nasty voice.

"Hey beautiful!" he said and Nate's voice made her change mind instantly "How are you?"

"Sleeping?" she replied, trying to control the tone "It's 3 am, where are you?" she asked, watching at her clock. Elena sat on the bed, hugging her legs as if she wanted to feel a touch. She didn't hear him in a (another) week and she was kind of missing him. She was eager to tell him about her day, basically every day, and her big news!

"Crap, sorry!"

"It's ok." she said. She could hear the wind from the other corner of the phone and maybe some steps, that could have been his own. She hoped from the sounds to understand where he was or at least if he was in a city or in the nature, anything that could help her!

"I saw the show."

"Really?"

"Really!"

Elena didn't believe him, but she didn't mind. She didn't want to watch it herself, for god's sake! "What was it about?" she questioned him to test his statment.

"Ahm.." he pretended to think about it "El Dorado?" he tried.

She wasn't sure, but she thought she heard a shotgun in distance. A clench squeezed her heart, taking her breath away. She tried to remember what the professors said in the college: the doppler effect makes you hear a sound that is stronger when you walk to the source, or it was the contrary? Then another gunshot catched her attention. She wanted to ask if he was ok, if he didn't get shotted, if he was safe, if he was walking to that sound or if he was walking from that sound. But he would have never said the truth and maybe he would have ended the conversation or maybe she would, so she decided to hold those questions and to talk about something else. She swallowed. "No, jackass, it was about the coffin!" she heard her own voice so trembling that she didn't even recognize it.

"Yeah, I knew!" Nate said pretending to be offended "I was just checking if you were paying me attention!"

"Let's say I believe you." she spoke, trying to seem cool to him, but her mouth went dry when she heard again another shot and it was closer. It was the third one. She freaked out, because she wasn't there, maybe she could have helped him in some way, watching his back maybe. But she couldn't. He didn't want her to.

"Elena," he started to say and she freaked out again "sorry, I have to go."

If she didn't hear those sounds, she would have asked "where to" and maybe they would have had a fight when she woundn't have had anything to lose anymore, but the distraction could have cost his life. So she pushed the red button and hoped to hear him soon.

This was getting more and more frustrating.

Elena's frustration was getting higher and higher.

She was living close to her phone, never letting it lying alone somewhere, always on a trickle charge. Once or twice a day she thought she heard it, but the screen was off. She checked to be sure. On and off, on and off, again and again. There was nothing.

She was fearing for the worse. What could have happened that made him impossible to make a call or type a message? She could still hear the noise from those guns. She asked herself more than once how anyone of his adventures would have succeded if there was no body to save his ass as she did. She hoped Sullivan was there. But she didn't hear his voice, so he wasn't.

Nate was alone. She knew it. That also meant there was no body to spread the news he was dead. Time would have simply passed without a word from him.

How could she live in that way?

How could she pretend to have a normal life in that way?

When the phone buzzed for real, she couldn't believe it. She jumped to grab it and to push the green button. When Elena put the phone up to her ear, the suspance began to eat her alive from her chest to her belly and to her brain. And she could tell, because her hands started to tremble like hell. It was unbelievable what she was going through.

Elena was waiting for Nate's voice to come out of it, so she couldn't believe the feeling of displeasure that raged into her when Frank asked her where the hell she was, why she didn't come to his office with a new story, why his best reporter was shut in a house alone. She gritted her teeth, clenched both the fists leaving the phone between the ear and the shoulder. He was still talking when she said "I quit." and closed the conversation to keep the line free.

She fell asleep crying that night.

The phone rang again just four days later.

The last days were an hell for her. Elena spent all of her time watching the news and checking internet for anything that would have helped her. She setted a google alert for "accident" and "historical place". The lack of informations was ridiculous: how could it be possible that a shootout in an archaeological site didn't get any attention? If she was in charge to decide what makes a news and what not...

When the phone rang, she picked up the call on the first ring. Anonymous again. "Hello?"

"Hey beautiful!" said Sully. His hoarse voice didn't give her the idea to be worried for Nate, or worse that Nate had got himself killed. But why wasn't he calling himself instead of his friend? Could he talk? Could he move his fingers?

"Sully?" she wasn't able to say anything else or ask anything else. His name was everything she could say.

"Give it to me!" a distante voice said: it was Nate, finally! "And go away!" he intimated to his friend, to stay alone with her. Elena heard Sully giggling and the delay made her anxious and furious. "Hey beautiful!" Nate spoke mimicking his friend.

"Good lord!" she let it out in frustration. She was crying again and thankfully he couldn't see her. The weeping shaked her shoulders and Elena had to cover her mouth with both hand, holding the phone between the cheek and the shoulder. "Are you mad?" she yelled when she managed to talk again. "I haven't heard you in weeks! And those gun shots and..." she kept going on, listing all of her fears.

"Ten days." he interrupted and corrected her, accepting her accusations and speaking in a low voice as if he was about to apologize. "In my defence, the signal wasn't that strong in Cambodia."

She sighed. No apologies at all. "Sorry, what?" she asked more and more frustrated, when her tears were still tracing a path on her check. Cambodia, she never checked that country.

"Come on," he pried her, keeping playing with the sheets on his bed to have his hands occupied "don't be mad at me, I'm already in the hospital."

"Oh."

He said the word with H. He was in hospital. She hated hospitals. Her parents were in a hospital when they died. She couldn't step a foot in a hospital again, she couldn't take calls from hospitals again. Elena internally panicked, but she wasn't that kind of fragile woman, she would have never let it take her. Not again at least. But here is the thing, if she wanted to deal with Nate, she would have dealt with the H word. She swallowed, took her time and picked the cuticles around her thumb.

"So, what's new?" he asked, complitely ignoring the inner war she was fighting.

She didn't want to change the subject, didn't want to repress the anger and the scare she felt in the last days, but it would have taken her nowhere. Was it a fight worthing something? Were they already at that point? The point she could ask to not risk his life, the point she could feel in the way she felt in the last days. "I quitted." so Elena said, getting regretfully back to the normality. Her gaze settled for a moment to her personal computer, where she tried to write her CV for a week without getting blood out of a stone.

She should have said something. She should have said that she waited for him every minutes of those ten days, that she has never been more worried about someone and that she had a problem with people who happen to need a hospital. Her nail drowned in blood.

"What? Really?" and it almost scared him, because why the hell was she saying it to him? But then he realized she just told it to him, she just shared one of her decision on her career and the thought made him feel special in some way. "Why?" he only managed to ask.

She was so much regretting the change of subject, but she bit her lip and spoke. "It was about time." she just replied in a droning voice, but she didn't want him to think he had something to do with her decision, that she got mad after their meeting or that she was the kind of person who leaves everything for a lover. So she swallowed her pride and tried to explain her decision. "I want to do something different." she said and then she got dragged into that conversation, as nothing happened and she realised also how much she wanted to tell the news to him since it happened, but she couldn't. And so she kept talking without even realising. "You know, help the world, change it... I'm meant for something better."

"What a good girl!" Nate would have never ammitted to her, not so early at least and not without a man pocking his skin between his ribs, torturing it out of him, but he was really proud of her. She was so strong and determined. Elena would have made it, whatever she wanted to do. She would, he was so sure.

"Shut up." she said in an embarrassed voice he never heard.

Nate could picture her face going bright red, could image to compare her cheek to a vegetable, to think she was cute and to kiss her forehead making her blushing even more. He couldn't help but smile. "Can I... Can I come to you?" he asked still dreaming in his mind, speaking before of understanding what he said. "As soon as I get over this place."

His question sounded like a plea in Elena's mind. She didn't ask him to meet, why did he? Why was he anticipating her? Why did he want to see her, but it didn't cross her mind before of his question? Was he running too fast? Was she going too slow? And again he was in a hospital. The confusion took her again. She got scared and forgot all the good time they spent together. She couldn't speak a word. What the hell was happening?

"I can't wait to see you." he said.

When he got out of the plane that took him to his girl, he complitely forgot about his phone. He also forgot to wait for his luggage, untill he felt his hand weirdly light and nude and so he remembered. Disaster averted! He didn't forget when she was living and also to buy flowers, chocolate and, of course, pizza.

Nathan was planning a big surprise for his girl: he told her that the hospitalization was running long, but he was already standing on his feet. So he turned off his phone and took a plane. He would have showed up at her door holding a flower, a rose perhaps, and food, a lot of food. He would have kissed her, touched her but not much. He didn't want to be rude, just to make her feel how much he missed her. And then they would have eaten and talked all night long. That was everything he was asking for.

And so he bought those flowers and the chocolate at the airport. They weren't so good looking, but it didn't matter.

Nate stepped out of the glass doors. It was already night time, the air was cold and the blue already ate the sky. He had to zip his jacket and blow warm air in his hands. He followed the street signs that pointed to a cab rank, where there was just one man still working. The overweighted old age taxi driver, who didn't care a lot about his lungs, was freezing to smoke a cigarette outdoors. But thankfully, he was there!

"Need a drive?" the man asked in a creepy voice.

"Y-yes." he said, but first he lifted a finger. Nate turned on his phone and in the meanwhile he gave to the man all of his stuff but the rose, that he wanted to hold himself to prevent it from getting ruined. He waited for the phone to buzz and as soon as it found the service, he got a text. "Call me." it said, from Elena. All right, just one word.

"Where to?" the man asked again, trying to rush his only one client.

Nate was about to reply, but he heard the unmistakable sound of Elena picking up the call and so he made that thing with his finger again and walked some feet away from him. "Hey, Elena! What's up?" he tried to sound easy, forcing himself to remember what was the last thing he told her.

"Nate," she said and her voice was so serious that it took all the enthusiasm out of him. "can we talk?"

He already had the idea of what was happening, he didn't see that coming. "Sure." Nate sighed. He began to play with the flower he had in his hand. He rolled it between the thumb and the index finger, letting the thorns scratch his skin.

"Nate, I'm sorry, but.." and her voice trembled as if she forced herself to say something she didn't want to. "I can't do it again."

"Do what?" he asked and he hated how his voice was sounding, as if he was begging her or crying. For god's sake, he was crying.

"You." she said and she broke and she was crying too. "You risk your life and for what? Money, gold, the glory of thiefs community?"

He sighed, he knew where this conversation was going to. He knew what he was doing for living and he knew it wasn't just for living. He kept going on with those works since the beginning, not because he needed money but to feel alive, to get that thrilling sensation that not even sex could compare. He just thought she was a little like him, that she had that curiosity in herself. And maybe she had, but her self-confidence was incredibly higher than his own and she didn't need to win a battle to know she worthed something. She was stronger, he could tell.

He understood all those stuff, he knew since he met her that they would have come to that situation, but it hurted anyway. It hurted like two bullets shooted together: the first one killed him when she left him; the second one made him understand that she had right reasons he couldn't fight against. She was far better than him. Maybe he never desearved her.

"I'm sorry." she said to fill the silence.

"Yeah, I know." and he was suddenly cold.

"Are you ok?" she worried, she never heard such a silence from him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Take care, all right?" and he hanged up. Just like that. He would have never heard of Elena again.

Nate still had that damn flower in his hand. When he realised, he dropped it. What should he have done? He left the carpark and went again inside the airport. At least there was no wind in it.

He couldn't think about any other place to go but a warm nice beach, where he could have drunk to get over it.

Here we are. The end! Oh my god, I made it! :D

How was it? Tell me, tell me, I want to know everything I can get better with!

So, this is going straight into a collection. My next story will be between UC2 and UC3. Title will be easy "First interlude" (as I said, I took the idea from Stephen King, thanks man!). I can't wait! The first chapter will be about injured Elena and I'm going to make it the sadder I can, so to move on then to their marriage! How does it sound? I can't wait! lol

Let me know everything you want and if you enjoyed it leave me a kudo.

I want to really thank everyone who made it up to here. Thank you, really really very much!

Kisses


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